Surprising SEO Case Study - What's working in Google Now?

Can people please quit sharing video's, it's such a waste of time unless you're an analphabeet.

Still an interesting video, however nothing that will really last long as massive amount of article directory links are as unnatural as it can get.

I'm not very surprised that the article directory submission worked pretty well, thing is that those links are often hosted on the homepage for a while and thus pass on juice, I just wonder how long your rankings will stay.

I'm not really convinced about the effectiveness of the wiki and web2.0 links though. It could be that the other links kind of prevented the video to rank and that it would naturally rank with zero links at page 3,4,5 as well so did you build a video with no links to see what would happen with that one? Or did you wait a great while after uploading the video's to see where they would naturally rank?

At the huge sites like Ezines and such you won't stay long enough on the homepage to ge too pass any juice and probably you're spun article didn't get accepted there, the smaller sites probably get spammed a lot less these days so perhaps they really do send over some juice, but that's just speculating.

A long time ago I asked a VA to do 100% whitehat for me, I gave him a budget and let him free, while clearly saying that I didn't want any automated links.

Guess what I got?

150 manually made (yeah right) bookmarks at PR0-PR5 sites
and a spun article submitted to 50 article directories

So long for following instructions, kind of shows how freaking dumb or how limited their English is or just totally ignorant, I suspect the first and the latter.

Anyway, totally by surprise he did get me ranked at the top of page TWO for the keyword:

"payday loan lenders"

which has quite a few searches/month and in a competitive niche, obvious those rankings didn't last very long so although spam links can still work in the right amounts it never lasts very long which makes the case study kind of useless, unless you're into churn & burn.

So for the churn & burn amateurs:

Massive amounts of Bookmarks + Article Directories + Wiki's + Web2.0's

You left out public blog networks and private blog networks, which would be the main weapon of choice these days. Best results seem to have come from do-follow contextuals which is not really suprising. Also as you metioned, its not really a case study anyone could apply findings to use on-site, as you can blast the bejesus out of YT, but would you try throw that garbage at your domain?

Pro-bab-ly Not

Ranking for a short period of time is possible using unnatural means, but the real challenge is to maintain rankings for some period of time. Invariable unnatural links result in the page getting penalized. Consistent natural looking links will get you better results in the medium to long term.

Interesting! So magic submitter, SENUKU and other automated softwares are out of game now? That's a good news! People will now focus on producing quality content and videos! Good case study btw!

seems like a good case study, let us know how stable is the ranking in the coming days. I know it is not a strong link, but just curious how long it lasts.

To summarise the video:

1. Senuke blast - didn't work
2. Bookmarks - page 3 to 4
3. Xrummer profile links - didn't work
4. Web 2.0 - page 5
5. Scrapebox - didn't work
6. Social signals - didn't work
7. High PR blog comments - didn't work
8. Wiki links - page 4
9. Articles and Press Release - Page 1 - in top 3 results

I'd like to see a 301 redirect from and old high (>PR2), domain.

You guys are missing the point. This is one of the better posts on the forum. It shows testing and results. That is what we are doing every day right? That is effectively our job - we try things, if they make money we do more if it, if not we stop. I mean that is the definition of IM.

I thought the video was great. This is my new slogan:

It seems people are so afraid of Google that they get caught up more in what Google says they are doing instead of what they are actually doing.

So many decisions are made on Google rumors - show me the proof - the proof is a function of testing

Everyone starting out should basically do what the video did, tried 9 things, 1 worked and made money, now just do the 1 thing that worked 1,000 times and you have some serious cash

hey guys

i do agree, that articles, PR are working now.. However, what should be the ratio between URL,anchor or brand.. How the links should be made in articles or PR's?

That's not a bad case study, in this current Google nightmare scenario. What I would like to know is the timeline. I've personally noticed I can get most new websites ranked quickly but it doesn't last. Sometimes they stay 2 weeks, usually about 30 days. And then Google smacks them hard. I think that's due to Google having multiple bots that grade differently. And as the website gets viewed by the series it gets measured on different aspects.

I also think the keyword and category have a huge impact on ranking. High dollar-competition get the most attention, whereas the lower value don't really get the same scrutiny.

And I'm not sure using a video on youtube can equate to websites in ranking methods. The videos seem to handle crap links better but that can change too. But the OP clearly mentions that in the study.

The hardest part about doing a case study is there are just too many variables these days. A good example is the social signals methods really shouldn't be used necessarily for ranking but getting traffic from the links directly. Same goes for many links, look at the direct traffic as much as the ranking power. But the gothca there is that not all keywords or categories work with social signals.

That's the direction I'm moving to and it does seem to be much more effective. Even if Google doesn't give you any juice for a link, the direct traffic can be of value. These types of links require a little more effort and getting inside the head of your potential customer but in the long run provide better traffic (as in conversions and revenue).

Bottom line is it's a constant battle these days. I'm not sure it's any one method but a combination that fits the keyword, category, and competition.

Very interesting video. Thanks for sharing with us all. This information is really useful. I would suggest that you also combine link types and see their effect on the video rankings.

Regarding the video for which you built social signals, I would suggest you build some backlinks to it too. It could be that a combination of backlinks and social signals would prove good for rankings. It would be surprising if a site gets lot of social votes but no backlinks in the same way as only backlinks without social signals would look unnatural.

One more thing I would suggest you to try out is link pyramid. It could prove quite effective for the videos.

sam1893 - If you want to get better results (read direct traffic) from Social Bookmarks you post your self and look and try and figure out what is a burning question they might have about subject matter. Don't do 50 of the same links, pick the top 5 or 6 SB sites and vary your comments. Some of my sites get up to 15% of their traffic from these types of SBs. When I add a new page or post I usually use SBs to get it indexed and some quick traffic.

Same goes for Pinterest, Instagram, and flicker. I look around and comment on others too. If your links and info are well targeted you can get some good traffic that can convert better than random searches on Google.

Create a campaign rather than just a set of links. That way you can get some juice for serps and some direct traffic. So when I add some info I've already got a plan for bringing in traffic above and beyond the serps.

I've got a couple of older sites that Google kicked to the curb a long time ago but they keep trucking along with traffic from Bing, Yahoo, and the social networking sites. As long as you give the visitor what they are looking for you can do well without Google.

I rarely use anchor text anymore, maybe about 10%. Most of my links are either brand or straight URL. My page or post name says it all for the user anyway. And most of my links are at places that are directly related towards my subject.

It takes a lot more time and effort but the results justify both. Not for everyone but it works for me.

No matter what, it is a process of trial and error until another update!

I am tired of doing seo for websites, I now only rank youtube video and other social site weapon, it must be more easy and safe, donot care about the update.

Automated link building is like renting Google ranking. You may get some good result now, but you will lose your rankings sooner or later. Some people even can not get the short term high ranking because they don't know anything about Google's rules and can not hide their footprints smartly. So they get penalized immediately by Google.

So then - the question would be - (if #9 works) - what would be some of the top article directories to place your articles on?

Hubpages? Squidoo? EZA?

Uh...people....now don't tell me that ezinearticles and the crappy articlesbase etc. would see a second "renaissance" being the most powerful way to build links today...because this I would simply not buy!

What does he mean with "articles", besides press releases? WHERE do the articles go? There is no way in hell that the best SEO strategy ATM would be "article directories" and some bookmarking.

What did you use for your articles, AMR?

I just want to add that I consider this one of the more interesting posts on SEO recently. I still can't bend my head about your results with article directories and press releases. Accoding to Cutts, PRs have "no SEO value anymore"...and article directories are pretty much dead for two or more years.

I would be very interested in what results you get applying this to older, established domains...or any other, interesting combination such as PR and articles on their own...and/or in combination with social signals. I wouldn't be surprised if there would be some very surprising findings, say, combine a PR with some social signals....and possibly a NEW page/post on an older site as the URL. Things like that.

thx a lot mate for sharing this info and get it closer to us!! people like u are those who deserves the most success in life!! cheers to all :-)